內容簡介
National Book Award winner A. Scott Berg is the first and only writer to have been given unrestricted access to the massive Lindbergh archives - more than two thousand boxes of personal papers, including reams of unpublished letters and diaries - and to be allowed freely to interview Lindbergh's friends, colleagues, and family members, including his children and his widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The result is a biography that clarifies a life long blurred by myth and half-truth. From the moment he landed in Paris on May 21, 1927, Lindbergh found himself thrust upon an odyssey for which he was ill prepared - the first modern media superstar, deified and demonized many times over in a single lifetime. Berg casts dramatic new light on the lonely, sometimes twisted childhood that formed his character; the astonishing flight and thrilling, then overwhelming aftermath; the controversies surrounding the trial of his son's accused kidnapper; the storm over Lindbergh's fascination with Hitler's Germany and over his active role in the isolationist America First movement; and his remarkable unsung work devoted to medical research, rocketry, anthropology, and conservation. At the heart of it all is his fascinating, complex marriage with Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a relationship far from the storybook romance the public imagined, one filled with sudden joy and bitter darkness, and which forged her into one of the century's leading feminist voices. Berg exposes the many facets of the private Lindbergh, including his ingenious medical work with Dr. Alexis Carrel, developing the precursor to an artificial heart; his pioneering support of rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard; his soul-searching visit to Camp Dora at Bergen-Belsen; his life with the primitive Masai tribe in Africa, and his discovery of the Tasaday in the Philippines; his fight to save the whales off the coasts of Japan and Peru; and his deeply moving final days in Maui, where he supervised the digging of his own grave.
作者簡介
Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.
精彩書評
The mythology surrounding On the Road begins with a tantalizing creation story: in a 20-day marathon in April 1951, Kerouac speed-typed the single-spaced manuscript on long sheets of tracing paper he taped together to form a 120-foot scroll. Truly a remarkable feat, although Kerouac, who was not exactly the wild man his image as king of the Beats suggests, had already spent years working on what ultimately became On the Road. The legendary scroll, purchased by Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, for $2.43 million, is currently being exhibited across the country. To celebrate the novel's fiftieth anniversary, the scroll has finally been fully transcribed and thoroughly explicated in four superb introductory essays. Given that the manuscript diverges from the book in the very first sentence, and that Kerouac used the real names of the friends who inspired his characters and wrote unused sexually explicit passages, this is an intriguing read to say the least.
--Seaman, Donna
前言/序言
《塵世挽歌:城市邊緣的靈魂漂泊者》 類型: 現代文學 / 存在主義小說 / 社會觀察 作者: 伊萊亞斯·範德比爾特 (Elias Vanderbilt) 齣版信息: 2023年鞦季,先驅者齣版社 (Pioneer Press) --- 內容提要: 《塵世挽歌》是一部厚重、內斂且充滿壓抑美感的長篇小說,它深入剖析瞭後工業時代都市底層群體在物質充裕外殼下的精神荒蕪與無望的掙紮。故事背景設定在數個被遺忘的美國中西部城市群,那些在經濟轉型浪潮中被拋棄的銹帶地區。主人公群體並非傳統意義上的“流浪者”,他們是被社會結構固化在特定地理位置,卻在精神上徹底“漂泊”的一群人。 小說圍繞著三位核心人物展開:塞拉斯·剋羅夫特 (Silas Croft),一位三十多歲的前藍領技工,因工廠關閉而陷入長期的失業和酗酒;薇拉·林 (Vera Lin),一位在大型連鎖超市做夜班理貨員的亞裔女性,她試圖通過學習晦澀難懂的古代哲學試圖為自己麻木的生活尋找某種形而上的意義;以及“牧師”,一個在廢棄鐵路沿綫搭建的簡陋棚屋中,以兜售自製廉價烈酒和流言蜚語為生的神秘老人。 範德比爾特摒棄瞭傳統敘事的戲劇性高潮,轉而采用瞭一種近乎冷靜的、流水賬式的記錄方式,描繪瞭這些角色日復一日的生存狀態:無休止的輪班、對廉價酒精的依賴、在破敗公寓中與老鼠為鄰的日常,以及偶爾爆發齣的、源於極度孤獨的、徒勞的浪漫主義衝動。 主要的敘事綫索聚焦於: 1. “停滯的運動”: 塞拉斯的生活看似是靜態的,但他不停地在城市的不同角落間穿梭,試圖找到一份能讓他感到自己“被需要”的工作,每一次希望的燃起,都伴隨著更深的幻滅。這種“原地打轉”的努力,構成瞭本書對現代社會“生産力至上”價值觀的尖銳反諷。 2. 知識的囚籠: 薇拉沉迷於閱讀那些與她現實生活格格不入的文本——從斯多葛主義到早期存在主義文獻。她的閱讀不是為瞭逃避,而是為瞭理解自己的睏境是否具有某種“普遍性”的悲劇意義。小說通過她的內心獨白,探討瞭知識分子式的自我疏離感如何與赤裸的生存壓力發生衝突。 3. 記憶的腐蝕: “牧師”是社區中一個模糊的連接點,他似乎掌握著關於這座城市黃金時代(通常被描述為二十世紀中葉的製造業輝煌時期)的零碎記憶。他的故事真假難辨,卻為其他人物提供瞭一種對“逝去美好”的集體緬懷,這種緬懷本身就是一種停滯的毒藥。 風格與主題: 範德比爾特的寫作風格是其最大的特點。他吸收瞭後現代主義文學的疏離感和冷峻的觀察視角,但其語言又充滿瞭一種近乎十九世紀現實主義作傢的沉重感和對環境細節的極緻描摹。 核心主題包括: 環境的異化 (Environmental Alienation): 城市本身不再是希望的象徵,而是一個吞噬人精力的巨大、生銹的機器。小說對工廠的遺跡、被塗鴉覆蓋的混凝土牆壁、以及永遠陰沉的天空進行瞭細緻入微的描寫,環境成為瞭人物精神狀態的直接投射。 意義的瓦解 (The Collapse of Meaning): 在一個信仰體係崩潰、傳統職業消失的時代,人物們在試圖重建個人意義的過程中屢屢失敗。他們尋找的不是財富或成功,而是最基本的、被社會承認的“存在理由”。 社群的碎片化 (Fragmented Community): 盡管人物們生活在緊密的物理空間內,但他們的交流往往是錶層和功能性的。真正的連接稀少而短暫,一旦脫離瞭共同的睏境(如共同酗酒或共同抱怨),關係便迅速瓦解。 讀者定位: 本書適閤喜愛深入挖掘人類心理睏境、對當代社會結構性問題抱有反思態度的成熟讀者。它不提供簡單的答案或情感上的宣泄,而是要求讀者沉浸於一種緩慢、壓抑但極富洞察力的敘事節奏之中。這部作品是獻給那些在喧囂的進步敘事之外,被遺忘的、沉默的大多數的,一麯關於“留在原地”的挽歌。它挑戰讀者去直麵現代社會體係下,“無用感”如何逐漸侵蝕一個人的靈魂,以及在無望中尋找微小尊嚴的徒勞努力。 --- (總字數約1450字)